Objective Secured

With the event now a couple of weeks ago, I guess its time for some thoughts and reflections on the event as a whole.

Terrain

For the most part, the terrain was solid in terms of volume. I would have preferred more line of sight blocking terrain on the tables to reduce the impact of the shooting phase but mostly, excellent stuff. You can see what I mean in the pics from the rounds in my older posts.

Armies

We had a decent mix of forces this year – not counting Cult Mechanicus (since it missed the cut off for the codex inclusion for the event) we had just about every force get a showing at the ATC. Marines of all forms, daemons and tau, eldar and necrons, orks and the guard. In fact the only release that did not see any action was the space elf death clowns…

That does not mean that I would not have liked more variety mind you. Not so much for the armies taken but the way lists were made. It was very possible to create mirror lists within a team where the armies were essentially the same. The intent in the past years was to avoid this and I hope that next year will see us go back to the limit of each codex may only be used once per team. I might even try and run the clowns!

Match Ups

I really enjoy this part of the process at the ATC. It sounds silly I know but its a whole new set of tactical challenges in a limited sense. Looking back through my notes from the weekend I think I have gotten better at the match up process. I certainly felt more prepared this year than last! The team had spent more time working together on the lists as well as looking more carefully at the opponents lists as well. I think this gave us an edge on previous years to really look at what we could and could not achieve. While some of the match ups did not pan out as intended, the system as a whole worked well for us. The team needs more time to understand the army they are playing and its limits so that the match up process is more reflective of the probable result but that’s something we can work on.

My Games

One of the biggest problems I faced last year as captain was that the army I used was very time intensive to play. Lots of units, lots of dice required and finesse to play meant I often did not get the time I needed to keep an eye on the teams progress. Once this was identified as an issue, a quick conversation with the team meant I got a much more straight forward list together for this year. No psychic death star, no complex movement or weapons and a limited model count. It worked a treat! I never once ended up unable to support the team with a rules query or found myself running out of time as I had spent to long keeping track of the other games. The fact the list did pretty well (3 wins, 2 losses) was nice as well. Its something we will definitely be mindful of again next year.

The Future

I look to the teams future with a great degree of optimism – we improved on last years placing and gave a couple of the well established teams a bit of a scare with out match ups and lists. We played well in general with no one thing being an issue for the results we achieved. Would I have liked a better finish? absolutely! But this is a game of dice and perspective is key. I know we will go back next year and be better equipped to make a real splash.

Some thanks

Thanks to my loving and understanding wife, Emma, for putting up with my insane hobby and its jets setting ways – could not have done it without you!

Thanks to my kids who sat with me painting and encouraging me to get the army done – many a model was finished with a sleeping 2 year old on my lap!

Thanks to my mates for keeping me sane though the lead up and the event itself – Pete, Mitch, Richard, Brett and everyone else who helped me out – thanks guys.

What’s next?

I have a bunch of space elf death clowns that need to be finished…